Saturday, 3 November 2012

I paid a visit to ActivSpaces and had quite an experience. ActivSpaces located in Buea is a tech start-up incubator. If you have ever been there then this article isn't for you, unless you got so much time to burn, etc.

My visit to ActivSpaces.

If you have been to other tech incubators but not ActivSpaces, you need to get there now, and for those who (like me before this article) have never been to a tech incubator, well ... You Need Help !I got to meet a great deal of guys who are behind some trend changing products.

First you got Al Banda, the community manager of activ spaces. I will like to say he is the man who keeps the amazing guys amazing.There is alsoMohamed Felata who is behind King Maker, an internet cafe Ad Network which helps cyber cafe owners make more money by effectively serving ads to their customers. It can also be used by school I.T centers to serve ads to the student population and other.Otto Paul, who is behind Makonjoh.com, an e-commerce site which enables users to buy without using a credit card and has other functions which make it specially tailored for the Cameroonian market.

I also got to meet Quincy, Nara and Absalom the developers of Wasahostel.com, Ryan Yoder who has worked on a couple of projects at ActivSpaces and a lot of other guys all gearing up to change the face of technology in Cameroon. Its a place to be and I plan to visit more often or better, be a member.

Tuesday, 2 October 2012

Many people always ask the question which is the most cost effective energy source or which is the safest; coal, gas, hydro, or nuclear?. Many people wonder why solar or wind which are green ( environmentally safe ) are not widely used relative to hydro and other forms and nuclear which poses a great threat ( weapons and meltdowns ) is still growing in use. Well, after reading you will have an idea.

Comparing Per Kilowatt-Hour Cost Estimates for Multiple Types of Energy Production

Most Cost Effective Form of Energy Production

Hydroelectric is the most cost
effective at $0.03 per kWh. Hydroelectric production is naturally
limited by the number of feasible geographic locations and the huge
environmental infringement caused by the construction of a dam. Nuclear
and coal are tied at $0.04 per kWh. This comes as a bit of a surprise
because coal is typically regarded as the cheapest form of energy
production. Another surprise is that wind power ($0.08 per kWh) came in
slightly cheaper than natural gas ($0.10 per kWh). Solar power was by
far the most expensive at $0.22 per kWh—and that only represents
construction costs because I could not find reliable data on production
costs. Also, there is a higher degree of uncertainty in cost with wind
and solar energy due to poor and varying data regarding the useful life
of the facilities and their capacity factors. For this analysis the
average of the data points are used in the calculations.

Three coal plant projects were used ranging from
300 to 960 MW. The construction costs of these coal plants ranged from
$1.2 to $4 billion, which are less in total dollars than new nuclear
ranging from $5 to $9 billion. However, due to nuclear’s higher capacity
factor and larger MW rating, the per kWh construction cost of the coal
plants ($0.016 to $0.019) is similar to new nuclear plants ($0.014 to
$0.024).